Page 148 of Hate Me

Caleb nodded, taking all that in. “And this?” he asked, pointing to the chief arms facility. “Dante’s gonna lead the assault on this chief arms facility? It says there’s a massive shipment headed there, a heavily-guarded and escorted one too.”

“The shipments will experience a detour, thanks to our infiltrators providing Elijah with false intel concerning my intent to intercept if they continued on their original planned routes. During that detour, a combination of Dante’s and my people will take them.”

“Wow, waiting for your plants to get into positions of power and influence is really gonna pay off.”

“Sure will,” Luke said, smiling proudly out at me.

Caleb eyed me. “And you’re gonna take the compound?”

I nodded. “As you know, Elijah’s movements are incredibly difficult to determine. He doesn’t follow a set schedule, instead flitting from thing to thing and place to place each day without letting his people know where he is or where he’s going to be. It’s partly an approach to ensure he’s not predictable to his enemies, but also part of his behavior, wherein he can’t stay in one place, or on one task, for too long or he becomes agitated. But with our infiltrators in place, we’ve managed to narrow it down to only two possible locations. Tomorrow night he’ll either be at his chief arms facility to receive the transports that will never actually arrive, or he’ll be at his compound.”

“Right. Between you and Dante, you’ve got it covered. One of you will take that fucker out.”

One of us.

Rationally, it shouldn’t matter who it was.

But, personally, I needed it to be me.

To have him fall by my hand.

To watch him draw his last breath as I took his fucking life.

After what he’d done, I couldn’t allow it to be any other way.

Only lethal justice would suffice.

My phone rang then, cutting into my thoughts.

I pulled it free and took in the call display.

“It’s Dante,” I told them. “I need to take this.”

“Fine by me. Go right ahead,” Caleb said with that edge of his that he just couldn’t seem to drop when Dante made contact, even when it wasn’t in person and was just over the phone.

“I agree,” Luke affirmed, folding his arms over his chest and trying to settle in.

The two of them exchanged a knowing look, clearly sharing the same unfavorable sentiment toward my friendship with Dante.

“Now is absolutely not the time for these petty issues.”

“It’s not petty,” Caleb told me.

“It’s concern. Valid concern,” Luke said.

I rolled my eyes. “Come to me with any shred of proof that this concern has merit and we’ll talk. Until then, get it together. Both of you. We’re on the eve of war, lock it up.” I gestured at the open door of my office. “Out. Now. We’re done here.”

Caleb grumbled, but started moving his hot little ass, and Luke took the cue as well, knowing my uncompromising tone well.

As soon as they were through the door, I kicked it shut with a frustrated sigh, then took Dante’s call.

I just needed to hang on a little while longer.

Just this last hurdle.

Then I could finally rest.

30

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